Quick Review – Gantz: O

Just to let everyone know, I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about Gantz. I am not much of a manga reader and I have watched the horrible anime adaption either. I know that this adaption wasn’t for me, but I decided to watch it anyway by going in blind. I saw the icon for it on Netflix and immediately clicked on it because it looked interesting. There were a few things that I didn’t understand about it at first, but the concept is easy enough to understand. It’s yet another death game kind of thing that is more like a real first person shooter. It’s not that complicated of a thing. Not much to get attached to really. Maybe that’s because I don’t have an attachment to the source material in any way, shape, or form, but nothing besides the visuals grabbed me.

Gantz: O does not have a complicated of a plot/story. When a selected person dies, they get reborn and put into a scenario where they have to play a game in which they fight against demons/aliens to live. These people do not get multiple lives like in a video game, you die once and that is it. The characters are simple too. Our protagonist’s only trait is that he wants to get back to his brother. There is also a female model, an old man that is afraid of everything, and an edgy teenager that thinks that he is all that. That’s about it for this movie. The monsters they fight and the visuals are the real stars of Gantz: O.

This movie is a complete CG film and it is really good CG. Not that Berserk movie or tv series cg that looks awful and out of place, but like that Harlock movie (also on Netflix) CG that feels natural and flowing. There was no stiffness to any of the movements of the hair or clothing either and that is the best you can do with cg. While it was all CG, nothing in any setting called immediate attention to this fact by feeling out of place. Maybe that’s because it was all cg though. The cityscape settings were incredibly detailed, the different types of weapons and vhicles were fun to look at and made me want one of their motorcycle things, and the monsters that the people fought were incredibly designed. So many unique monster designs and I loved every single one of them. I should also mention that the lip flaps aren’t anime lip flaps, the synced up the mouth movements with the Japanese voice actors. I noticed this because the English voice actors words did not match up perfectly with what the characters were saying. At first this distracted me, but I got used to it.

In the end, I couldn’t feel invested in this movie. Gantz: O felt like Suicide Squad because there was a short first act, the second act dragged on forever by having people fight monsters in the city for what seemed forever, and the third and final act took five minutes. Besides the visuals, I did not find anything unique or interesting about it. I admit that I would feel a lot better about this arc they adapted if I had investment into this by reading the manga or watching the anime, but I didn’t. That’s partially my fault, but Gantz never interested me. After watching this, it still doesn’t. That is my subjective opinion though. The death game scenario just doesn’t do anything for me because they all seem the same to me. If you are interested in death game scenarios and don’t know anything about Gantz, then go ahead and watch this. You will probably get more out of it then me.